


Tender Feelings

by ElwritesFanworks



Category: Nero Wolfe - Rex Stout, The Fat Man (Radio)
Genre: Awkward Crush, Brad reads Archie like a book, Crush at First Sight, Feelings Realization, M/M, POV First Person, Pre-Slash, Professional Rivalry, Repressed Feelings, a fandom so small you can write all its corresponding fanfiction on a single grain of rice
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-03
Updated: 2017-05-03
Packaged: 2018-10-27 05:41:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,285
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10802895
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ElwritesFanworks/pseuds/ElwritesFanworks
Summary: Archie meets Brad Runyon at a party. The detective interests him. His interest, in turn, interests the detective.A bit of speculation later and Archie's left wondering why exactly he was so attracted to Runyon's intelligence and obesity.





	Tender Feelings

**Author's Note:**

> Just a silly little thing I wrote during exams. 
> 
> I've been listening to 'The Fat Man' a lot lately and this idea just formed and I ran with it.
> 
> Unbeta-d and written rather quickly, so the quality may not be the best, but I thought I'd share it rather than abandon it altogether.
> 
> Brad Runyon is a hard character to pin-down - that combination of smart, tough, and charismatic. I hope I did him justice but he's not a character I've tried to write before, or, probably, will ever write again, so who knows?
> 
> To be honest, I just wanted some Old Time Radio fanfiction. There is not nearly enough of it.

* * *

The first discovery of tender feelings always interests me. It could be nosiness, but I like to think it’s just a healthy curiosity – besides, in my line of work, neither of those qualities go amiss. I like knowing what it is that makes people tick, including myself.

This particular discovery came about because I’d been invited to a party – or rather, Wolfe had been invited to a party and sent me instead. I couldn’t blame him. Spending the better part of an evening rubbing shoulders with other private dicks didn’t seem to me like the sort of thing he’d enjoy. Put that many clever people in one room and the compressed tension of that much ego would be as powerful, and volatile, as a small bomb.

Duty bound, I went. I arrived at the location – the private home of a newspaper magnate keen to ingratiate himself with potential sources of information – at a quarter past seven. I’d deliberately arrived a half-hour late, so that I could get a sense of the crowd and the atmosphere. Like I’d predicted, it was tense. Pompous brains were shooting angry looks at skittish, shadowy types, while the few fellas who made their living catching cheating husbands sat in a bunch, stuffing themselves with hors d’oeuvres. I joined them, partly because they seemed the least likely to snap, and partly because I hadn’t eaten. The spread was nowhere near good enough to have met Wolfe’s standards, but I had certainly had worse and had to pay for it, so the complimentary portions were fine by me. Moreover, someone had paid for them – likely paid quite a bit, too. Journalism was apparently the way to go, if fame and fortune was what you were after. I held a moment of silent mourning for the life of the newspaper magnate unlived, and followed it with an oyster chaser. I made small talk, keeping things as impersonal as possible, until a massive shadow fell over me and any lingering thoughts of the potential sales of the unpublished Goodwin Gazette were driven from my mind.

I turned, for a half-second sure I’d see Wolfe standing there – all the while knowing it was impossible. Instead, the man I faced was like Wolfe only a little taller and squarer, with a sort of bemused expression, as though he was finding the evening as tedious as I was. He looked familiar, though I couldn’t place him until he crushed all the bones of my hand in his and spoke in a voice like a bass drum.

“Brad Runyon.”

“Archie Goodwin,” I said.

“Ah, Mr. Goodwin! At last, I meet the man responsible for running herd on New York’s second greatest detective.”

Somehow, he managed to say it in a way that was both cocky and confident, but not in any way hostile. I’ve met men like Runyon before and since – and a few women, too – and all of them have one thing in common: enough faith in their own abilities to make petty jealousy a waste of time.

“Have an oyster?” I said, because my brain was stalled for some reason. It really was uncanny, the build of the man. At once familiar and strange to me.

“No thanks. I doubt they’d appreciate me finishing the platter.”

That was something else different. Wolfe didn’t deny he was a big man, but he didn’t seem to... revel in it, the way Runyon did. You wouldn't think you could get more hedonistic than my boss, but the likes of Brad Runyon would prove you wrong. One got the notion that, for Runyon, every inch of that big frame was just more power he could use to his advantage. He was hefty, sure, but he was strong too – I could tell from the set of his shoulders. A man like that could break an average joe like a toothpick and not think twice about it. I speculated that, if he wanted to, he could probably lift me and toss me clear across the room.

We milled around and talked a bit. I’ll admit, the chance of recalling verbatim what was said is zero. There was just something… mesmerizing about the way Runyon interacted with the other guests. He was charismatic, but with a sort of coldness to it – just enough that you knew he was only getting friendly for the sake of the occasion. It was so intensely unlike Wolfe, seeing him act so natural, so comfortable, in the crowd. He played everyone in the room like a violin from the minute he arrived, myself included, flirting with the women and staring down the men like a prize-winning bull, staking his claim to his pick of the heifers.

For the rest of the night, I trailed after Runyon like a puppy. He seemed mildly amused by it, but didn’t tell me off, so I stayed. As the last of the guests spilled out into the street, he paused and turned to me. The moonlight cast a real dramatic shadow on him, and next to him, I suddenly felt very small.

“Nice meeting you,” I croaked, my mouth dryer than either of us expected. He raised an eyebrow and nodded.

“And you. And Mr.... Goodwin, was it?”

He knew my name, of course, but I could tell from how he looked at me that he was enjoying watching me squirm a little. Under the weight of that intelligent stare, I felt uncomfortably like a worm on a fish hook.

“Yeah?”

“While I’ll admit that I’m flattered, that’s all that I am. To put it another way, I’m not the tree you want to be barking up. Try sniffing around your own backyard a bit next time – might have better luck.”

I stared at him.

“Detectives,” he said, “are a lousy bunch, aren’t we? Goodnight, Mr. Goodwin.”

Then he turned and was gone. I watched his big, square back retreat and considered his words, really worked them over. My carefully maintained mental gymnastics came to a violent halt, and so, the age of ignorance passed in the span of a couple of anxious minutes. With nothing more than a few choice words and an evening in my company, Brad Runyon had taken me apart and put me together again in a way that left me permanently... askew. Sure enough, all the puzzle pieces fit. I had enough pride to be a little sore at Runyon for putting them together before I did, but only a little sore. I’m no fool, and I don’t discount how lucky I was that Runyon chose to be flattered rather than repulsed.

Having escaped calamity by the skin of my teeth, I returned to the lion’s den, this time with the knowledge that I, or at least, my subconscious, wanted to get particularly well-acquainted with the lion. Wolfe had waited up for me, wanting an account of the party. I kept it brief, but if he noticed, he had sense enough for both of us and steered well clear.

“Brad Runyon was there,” I concluded. Wolfe grunted, displeased.

“That man is a buffoon. What did you think of him?”

“He’s sharper than you think. Not as sharp as you of course, but not bad for New York’s second greatest detective.”

Tender feelings or not, some things never changed. Wolfe ordered me out of the office at that.

“That you speak so highly of him demonstrates to me that your faculties are experiencing a rapid decline. Go to your room, Archie.”

The effect of that particular assertion of paternalistic authority raised a whole lot more questions I would have to ask myself.

“Sure thing, Boss.”

I did too, didn’t even back-talk once. I didn’t do much sleeping, either.


End file.
